1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photographic film processing apparatus for processing a long developed photographic film formed by joining a plurality of films with a splicing material.
2. Description of the Related Art
In processing exposed photographic film with a small automatic developing unit, films in respective clients' orders are developed separately, one after another.
However, it is inefficient to process one film after another. For processing with a large automatic developing unit, therefore, exposed photographic films in a plurality of orders are joined at the ends with a splicing material (e.g. splice tape) to form a long photographic film. The long photographic film is continuously developed and taken up in the form of a roll.
The developed photographic film taken up in a roll is subjected to a printing process by an automatic printing unit. In conventional practice, for example, the long film is passed through the printing process and taken up in a roll again, and subsequently the film is cut order by order by a cutting device.
Developed photographic film such as an ordinary 135 film, for example, may be a film with full-size or panorama-size frames 36 mm long each, or a film with half-size frames 17 mm long each.
No problem arises where the automatic printing unit can cope with all sizes at high speed. However, the full size and panorama size require different size pieces of printing paper and different degrees of enlargement. In the case of half size, the direction of printing paper is variable between longitudinal and transverse, besides a different degree of enlargement. Thus, in practice, there are limitations to what the automatic printing unit can do.
Conventionally, where a long photographic film includes panorama-size and half-size films, the long film is subjected to a printing process and taken up in a roll, while printing only the full-size film first, skipping the panorama-size and half-size films. Subsequently, the panorama-size and half-size films are printed, and the long film is cut for respective orders. Where film in one order has a mixture of full-size and panorama-size films, similarly the full-size film is printed first, and then the panorama-size film, followed by a cutting process.
Thus, varied image lengths may be present in a long photographic film formed by joining a plurality of films with a splicing material. This gives rise to a problem, with the conventional apparatus, of requiring very complicated and inefficient processes from printing to cutting.